Ecofin Round-Up

Date: 13/04/06

Let's make meetings less stuffy: ministers

The EU's finance ministers were in general agreement in Vienna that their monthly meetings are too formalistic and must be reformed to allow a genuine exchange of views between ministers.

They want to give greater emphasis to strategic issues and devolve technical issues to working groups of officials, allowing more room for genuine debate among finance ministers.

They agreed that there should be more exchange of experience of reform and of best practice - citing as an example a recent presentation on Denmark's flexicurity. Ministers applauded the participation of three business leaders (from Volkswagen, Nestlé and Telefonica) in their discuss of globalisation on Saturday morning.

But privately some participants doubted whether revamped meetings would lead to greater action. "There is a lack of political will," said one finance minister.

Global imbalances worry financial chiefs

The eurozone finance ministers, who met as the Eurogroup on Friday morning (7 April), reiterated their concern about "global imbalances", both in exchange rates and trade deficits. On Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning the EU finance ministers had a meeting with their counterparts from 13 Asian countries in ASEM. Afterwards, they called for a progressive revaluation of China's currency, the yuan, to reduce these global imbalances. Joaqu’n Almunia (above), the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said: "Each global actor must do its share of the work." The US should improve its savings levels, the EU and Japan should pursue structural reforms and China should increase its domestic demand and relax the exchange rate of its currency, he said.

Recovery affirmed

On the eve of the finance ministers' meeting, the European Central Bank (ECB) had caused a stir in the foreign exchange markets and a drop in the value of the euro when ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet (above) said there would be no interest rate rise in May.

In Vienna on Friday, Trichet said that the euro's exchange rate had not influenced the ECB's intentions. The Ecofin declared that the European economy was on course for improving growth in 2006, with growth rates of 2.2% for the EU25 and 1.9% for the eurozone. Gerrit Zalm, the Dutch finance minister, said the economic recovery was "stronger than the official forecasts of the eurozone".

At their Informal Ecofin meeting, 7-8 April 2006, in Vienna, Economics and Finance Ministers decided to reorganise Ecofin meetings. Article also reports on various meetings and events around the Ecofin meeting.

Austria: Presidency of the Council: News: Results of the Informal ECOFIN Meeting, 7-8 April, Vienna http://www.eu2006.at/en/News/information/0804InformalECOFIN.html

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